Tag: running

This past Sunday, I ran my first 5k race/fun run as planned. Hosted by Running Tours at Stanley Park, the event was surprisingly well managed, with an enthusiastic bunny MC/warm-up leader, friendly staff and volunteers, a nice race kit, and a freebie-filled water stop courtesy of Z95.3.

The organisers also donated a significant portion of proceeds — possibly 75%, judging by entry fees — to Canuck Place Children’s Hospice, which is more than admirable.

The one that says “Here, have some wings” does not seem to be a coupon/voucher at all

The cookie and tea vouchers are 10/10, the running magazines are interesting if ad-heavy, and the pepperoni stick I ate as soon as I left the Running Tours office, two days before the race.

The day before the race, B-cat and I did no more exercise than walking around the cherry blossom event at Queen Elizabeth Park. We shared a maccha-cherry blossom milkshake and woke up 2 pounds heavier the next day.

The morning of the race, downtown Vancouver was one giant traffic jam. We got off the skytrain at Granville, walked down to Burrard station, and watched the next #19 bus clank by with “Sorry, bus full” displayed.

The longest distance I had ever run was 5 km, and I was on my way to a 5k race. The logical thing to do then, according to B-cat, was to run 3 km to the race.

Because time was running out (I hate puns), we ran, passing four more #19s and two unrelated buses along the way. At least I was no longer cold by the time we reached Lumberman’s Arch…

Free bunny ears from the race kit

Running is fun when you run your own way, at your own pace. For me, that also means running in the rain or on cool evenings.

Not only was it sunny that afternoon, but after the first km, I found myself running just before or just behind an athletic couple pushing a stroller and decided to follow them the rest of the way. Their pace was challenging; I started feeling lightheaded the last 2 km.

I choose to think this woman let me pass her at the very end out of the kindness of her heart

But I had fun and was happy with my results. Not only did I beat my personal record for the only two other times I’d ever run 5km, I was 1st in my age group — 32 minutes and 5 seconds for this 32-year-old. Don’t tell me the serious runners took it easy because it was a fun run!!

We ran back to the Z95.3 booth to pick up the vanilla lipbalm I missed while spilling water into an entire sleeve (like a real runner!…) after visiting the sponsor tents, where we entered a Sun Life Insurance prize draw.

Today, as I was basking in the euphoria of having another story accepted by a literary magazine — more on that in a few weeks — one of the Sun Life representatives called to say that I didn’t win, but that he had time to meet up to discuss insurance plans.

When he asked why I went to the Easter fun run despite not having kids, I said I’d gotten hit by a car last year and wanted to get into running now that I could use my legs again.

His response: “Oh.”

Am I creepy for entering a fun run without kids, or is Sun Life just terrible??

Either way, I don’t regret this run: it was a blast from start to finish. I expect Running Tour’s Big Elf Run in December to be enormously fun and smoothly planned as well. Sign up if you’re in town!

In early March, I had another nightmare about the car accident and again realised how lucky I was to have legs that still work. With approval from the physiotherapist, I started running.

First attempt: I can’t run 200 metres without stopping.

Third attempt: I can’t run 200 metres without stopping.

Sixth attempt: I aim for 500 metres. Now my throat tastes like blood.

…

You’d think I could run at least 1 km, since that’s how much we had to run in elementary (after-school run) and high school (milk run, Terry Fox run), but hey I’m full of surprises.

That squirrel ate the tofu out of my pad thai

What was more surprising than me (haha) was how quickly running stopped sucking and became fun. Two weeks later, I signed up for a 5k as something to work towards and installed Strava to track my progress. Since I had 0 Strava friends at the time, I was happy logging the most inane “runs” like the above.

One rainy morning, I went to a Hoka One One event and ran an almost-5k alone around Burnaby Lake.

Sample pair of Hoka Clifton 3s — so squishy and light

I didn’t end up buying the test shoes, because I’m a terrible person [who needs more arch support], but B-cat convinced me to invest in runners actually made for running… even if they’re not as cute as $20 canvas shoes.

These homely Stinson 3s were the ones I ended up with:

So much arch support

Now, after one solid month, I can finally run 5 km without stopping and my body fat percentage is down to 17% (vs. 11% to 13% in the early 2010s and 25% after I started dating B-cat).

Lest any of this sounds like bragging, I should point out that not only is my 5k personal record abnormally slow, but B-cat had completed a 5k before in jeans and totally wrong shoes and took only half the time.